I don't think you were insensitive at all. My aim was to contextualize the blog post and the emotions that surely went into it.
I'm always loath to say what amounts to "take what they say with a grain of salt, they're heavily emotionally invested." It's fair to say that that's the case here, though. I say that as someone who thinks MIT does have some level of culpability and have had the pleasure of interacting with the wonderful and brilliant person that Taren is.
"I apologize if my original comment was insensitive."
It's sad that there is a need to apologize such as you did.
This is one of these issues in which ordinary discourse is not possible. You would have to spend so much time padding your thoughts about what you might think to lessen the impact on those that are highly sensitive for one reason or another.
Well I’m sorry but that’s a pretty basic part of the human experience. While there are some situation in which one can be blunt and straightforward, other situations require all the tact and empathy you can muster… Imagine turning someone down for a job interview. If the person cared for this job, every single word you say will be taken very personal and be mulled over afterwords. That means it is up to you to pick your words very carefully, and find a constructive phrasing.
It must be terribly painful to have strangers commenting on the loss of a loved one, especially in such a politically charged and public arena.